Married but Avaiable - Abhijit Bhaduri (2008)

Married but Available is the second novel in the MBA line. Protagonist Abbey who is a Jampot is testing waters in the real world and for next ten years struggling in the corporate structures of Balwanpur factory. A broken marriage, uncommitted relationships and a girlfriend who has no materialistic interest to success are some of the additional events of the novel.

I think in some sense the novel brings out a contrasting management styles of a political leadership of old generation to a participative leadership of the new generation. The kind of changes we have seen in some of the modern companies like TISCO and TELCO.

Overall a nice book to spend some time.

Peopleware: Productive Projects and Team (Second Edition) - Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister

Undoubtedly, a masterpiece in software engineering management literature. However, something makes you wonder if these aspects are so well known why is software industry yet to learn from it if the book is available for almost two decades. I feel the acceptance of management to the concepts are so radically different that the management finds it hard to accept in the long run.

Overall it's a book that must be read by all the people working in any form of high technology development process.

2 States - The story of my marriage - Chetan Bhagat (2009)

Again for me this was a literary disappointment. The story started so nicely, I was almost getting to like it as much as FPS and the style and approach was impeccable. Particularly, the punjabi and tamil culture and their differences looked very nice. With two bollywood movies released the writer is way too much in glamorizing the situations and in the end the story moved very fast to a very lackluster finish.

Yet another time pass book like the 3 mistakes of my life but I guess this is what new generation is looking from the author in any case.

Outliers - Malcolm Gladwell (2008)

The topic is very dear to everybody's heart. But, in short it's just a single sentence hardworking people who have exploited their environment properly made it to the successful list. Having a high IQ or having great schooling and all can definitely add to that but does not guarantee success. The difference in every successful person against others of his time are pretty small but as they exploit their environment to their advantage well the difference keeps mounting and they stand out as outliers.

A great book but in the end it will make you feel smart people who understood and exploited their environment well could be successful. Their upbringing added a lot to that.

Mahashweta - Sudha Murthy (2005)

An excellent story on how leukoderma can kill hopes of a beautiful girl and shatter her life. Leukoderma, though a non-communicable disease nor hereditary is still social taboo in India. Particularly, for girls it can ruin prospects of their getting married. Overall theme is nice and it really brings out an important social issue less talked about in the Indian context. May be we do not see as many leukoderma cases as much as we see more communicable skin diseases like leprosy which though curable is still a bigger stigma in the Indian context.

Like every Sudha Murthy story, the book moves fast. Good wins over evil and there is a sense of poetic justice delivered with the girl getting a moral victory of sorts when her husband who had abandoned her earlier comes back to her but she decides to turn him down.

Overall the plot is good. The message is delivered and if someone gets a reason to live by reading this book as described in the postscript why not. But do not expect too much of an intellectual food in the book. Still a good read for a couple of hours or for a flight.

The High Performance Entrepreneur - Subroto Bagchi

An excellent book that provides the insights into Dos and Donts of an Indian IT start up experience. At places I find it looks mostly like a course material on entrepreneurship and not much like maverick side of IT venture. It talks of Mindtree which is started by a set of strong managers of Indian IT industry and not by a group of technology experts who came up with a half baked but solid technology and wanted to make a big impact out of it. I think the definite maturity shown by the founders of Mindtree is commendable but madness of making mess of decisions as part of the start up development culture cannot be entirely ruled out.

Overall an interesting book. A bit like an elder brother giving advice to young entrepreneurs on dos and donts of entrepreneurship. But worthwhile reading.

The Three Mistakes of My Life - Chetan Bhagat (2008)

Reading this book on business, cricket and religion, made me feel the author is truly running out of steam. With the same kind of plots like Five Point Someone or one night at call center, taking some current affairs around Ahmedabad a story was stringed. But you will find little or no true need to drag cricket to it. Somewhere it may make you feel that the author has tried to write a pre-defined plot. Or may be having a bollywood movie under the belt has made him write the next movie plot.

With all the great writing style the author has, as a book it's not worth the time. Avoid if you are not reading it just because you have nothing better to read.